Are past life events or experiences holding you back?

I once watched a game show where the contestant was on an inflatable base with a small inflatable wall. Each contestant was attached to the wall by a bungee type rope. The aim was to see who could run the furthest before they were pulled back by the bungee rope.

Focus in life is vital; if we focus on the negative we will inevitably have become predisposed to that negative. If we are looking back at our past all the time and that remains our focus, we will constantly be plagued by past mistakes and negative events in our lives.

The good news though is that you can change where you are focused; as we all have a past, so we all have a future. The past will always be there and it is often very useful to learn things from the past, to inform our present and enable us to gain understanding which will go with us in the future. The key is to establish what the ‘wall’ event(s) in our past are, and gain greater understanding of them, take the learnings and carry them forward - in other words, cutting the bungee rope. We can not change our past, but we can change how we let it affect us and what we choose to do about it.

We all have a timeline; the past may be to our left and our future to or right, or the past behind us and the future in front of us or several varieties of directions. Are you standing in front of your past? Is it holding you back? How beneficial would it be to be able to change what direction you're facing - your past or future? Counselling is one very effective method of understanding your present and dealing with unresolved - and often painful - experiences which are in the past and may be holding you back from having a more satisfied life. It is possible for some clients to keep making the same mistakes and have no idea why. Often the issue is rooted in their past, but because they do not make the link they find no solution to resolve it significantly and it keeps coming back.

Timeline work works very well as part of the counselling process, putting you back in control of the direction you wish to focus on, your present and future equipped by learning from the past but not focused on the past.